Chapter 11

Going On a Mobile Safari

In This Chapter

Surfing the Net

Opening and displaying web pages

Using a wireless network

Having fun with links, bookmarks, and History lists

Securing Safari

“The Internet in your pocket.”

That’s what Apple promised the iPhone would bring to the public when the product was announced in January 2007. In the years since, Apple has come tantalizingly close to delivering on that pledge.

For years, the cellphone industry offered a watered-down mobile version of the Internet, but the approaches typically fell far short of what people had come to experience while sitting in front of a computer.

Apple was a pioneer in replicating the real-deal Internet on a phone. Web pages on an iPhone look like web pages on a Windows PC or Mac, right down to swanky graphics and pictures — and at least some video and web-based games.

In this chapter, you find out how to navigate through cyberspace on your iPhone.

Surfin’ Dude

A version of the Apple Safari web browser is a major reason that the Net on the iPhone is very much like the Net you’ve come to expect on a computer. Safari for the Mac (and for Windows) is one of the best web browsers in the computer business. And in our view, Safari is one of the very best cellphone browsers, especially with its edge-to-edge full-screen design.

Exploring the browser

We start our cyberexpedition with a quick tour of the Safari browser. Take a gander at Figure 11-1: Not all browser controls found on a PC or Mac are present. Still, Safari on the iPhone has a familiar look and feel. We describe these controls and others throughout this chapter.

Before plunging in, we recommend a little detour. Read the online article on EDGE at www.dummies.com/extras/iphone to find out more about the wireless networks that let you surf the web on the iPhone in the first place.

Blasting off into cyberspace

We tell you how great web pages look on the iPhone, so we bet you’re eager to get going. We won’t hold you back much longer.

Apple brought the previously separate address bar and search fields together into a single convenient unified strip called the smart search field, following the path taken on most popular web browsers for PCs and Macs. When you tap the unified smart search field (as you will in a moment), the virtual keyboard appears. But you’ll also see icons for sites you frequent most often, and you can tap any of those icons to jump immediately to that site.

Otherwise, the moment you tap a single letter, you see a list of web addresses that match those letters. For example, if you tap the letter s (as we did in the example in Figure 11-2, left), you see web listings for Sports Illustrated (si.com), Staples, and Sears, among others. Tapping U or H instead may display listings for USA TODAY or the Houston Chronicle (shameless plugs for the media properties where Ed and Bob are columnists). Scroll to see more suggestions and the virtual keyboard slides out of view, as shown in Figure 11-2, right.

The iPhone has two ways to determine websites to suggest when you tap certain letters. One method is the websites you already bookmarked from the Safari or Internet Explorer browser on your computer (and synchronized, as described in Chapter 3). More on bookmarks later in this chapter.

The second method iPhone uses when suggesting websites when you tap a particular letter is to suggest sites from the History list — those cyberdestinations where you recently hung your hat. Because history repeats itself, we also tackle that topic later in this chapter. In Figure 11-2, results from Bookmarks and History are lumped together.

You might as well open your first web page now. It’s a full HTML page, to borrow from techie lingo. Do the following:

1. Tap the Safari icon at the bottom of the Home screen.

   This icon is another member of the Fantastic Four (along with Phone, Mail, and Music).

2. Tap the smart search field (labeled in Figure 11-1).

   If you can’t see the smart search field, tap the status bar or scroll to the top of the screen.

3. Begin typing the web address on the virtual keyboard that slides up from the bottom of the screen.

   The web address is also called the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, for trivia buffs).

4. Do one of the following:
   • To accept one of the bookmarked (or other) sites that show up on the list, merely tap the name.

     Safari automatically fills in the URL in the address field and takes you where you want to go.

   • Keep tapping the proper keyboard characters until you enter the complete web address for the site you have in mind, and then tap Go in the lower-right corner of the keyboard.

     It’s not necessary to type www at the beginning of a URL. So, if you want to visit www.theonion.com, for example, typing theonion.com or, in this case, even just onion.com is sufficient to transport you to the humor site or at least to a link that puts you a single tap from the site.

To erase a URL you’ve erroneously typed, tap the smart search field and then tap the X to the right of the field.

Even though Safari on the iPhone can render web pages the way they’re meant to be displayed on a computer, every so often you may run into a site that serves up the light, or mobile, version of the website, sometimes known as a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) site. Graphics may be stripped down on these sites. Alas, the producers of these sites may be unwittingly discriminating against you for dropping in on them by using a cellphone. Never mind that the cellphone in this case is an iPhone. You have our permission to berate these site producers with letters, emails, and phone calls until they get with the program. To be fair, though, many websites have a link near the bottom of the page to get to the full website or the non-mobile version.

The smart search field and other menu options disappear when you start scrolling to read a page. In portrait mode, the URL at the top is still visible but it shrinks. In landscape mode, you don’t even see the URL because the site you’re visiting claims the entire page.

Either way, you get to see more of the content before you.

I Can See Clearly Now

If you know how to open a web page (if you don’t, read the preceding section, “Blasting off into cyberspace”), we can show you how radically simple it is to zoom in on the pages so that you can read what you want to read and see what you want to see, without enlisting a magnifying glass.

Try these neat tricks:

• Double-tap the screen so that the portion of the text you want to read fills up the entire screen: It takes just a second before the screen comes into focus. By way of example, check out Figure 11-3. It shows two views of the same Sports Illustrated web page. In the first view, you see what the page looks like when you first open it. In the second one, you see how the picture takes over much more of the screen after you double-tap it. To return to the first view, double-tap the screen again.

  

• Pinch the page: Sliding your thumb and index finger together and then spreading them apart (or, as we like to say, unpinching) also zooms in and out of a page. Again, wait just a moment for the screen to come into focus.
• Press down on a page and drag it in all directions, or flick through a page from top to bottom: You’re panning and scrolling, baby.
• Rotate the iPhone to its side: Watch what happens to the White House website, shown in Figure 11-4. It reorients from portrait to a widescreen view. The keyboard is also wider, making it a little easier to enter a new URL.

Opening multiple web pages at a time

When we surf the web on a desktop PC or laptop, we rarely go to a single web page and call it a day. In fact, we often have multiple web pages open at the same time. Sometimes, several pages are open because we choose to hop around the web without closing the pages we visit. Other times, a link (see the next section) automatically opens a new page without shuttering the old one. (If these additional pages are advertisements, they aren’t always welcome.)

Safari on the iPhone lets you open multiple pages simultaneously and presents all those open pages in the elegant three-dimensional tab view shown in Figure 11-5, left, loosely reminiscent of Cover Flow in iTunes on a Mac or a Windows computer. Tap the pages icon (labeled in Figure 11-1) to bring up the tabs. Then scroll from one tab to another as though you’re flipping through Rolodex cards. Tap a page to have it take over the full screen, as shown in Figure 11-5, right.

To close one of your open web pages, tap the X, which appears in the upper-left corner of each page in tab view (refer to the figure on left). Or use what feels to us like a more satisfying gesture: Swipe from right to left.

Looking at lovable links

Surfing the web would be a real drag if you had to enter a URL every time you want to navigate from one page to another. That’s why bookmarks are so useful. And it’s why handy links are welcome too. Because Safari functions on the iPhone in the same way browsers work on your PC or Mac, links on the iPhone behave much the same way, too.

Text links that transport you from one site to another are underlined or appear in a different color from other text on the page. Merely tap the link to go directly to that site. But tapping on some other links (as well as pressing and holding) leads to different outcomes:

• Open a map: Tapping on a map launches the Apple Maps app that is, um, addressed in Chapter 13, or sometimes a Google Map.
• Prepare an email: Tap an email address and the iPhone gives you the option to open the Mail program on your device (see Chapter 12). An outgoing message will be prepopulated in the To field with that address. The virtual keyboard will also be summoned so that you can add other email addresses and compose a Subject line and message. This shortcut doesn’t work in all instances in which an email appears on the web. We said that tapping an email address gives you the option to open Mail. A secondary option is to copy the email address to use somewhere else.
• Make a phone call: Tap a phone number embedded in a web page and the iPhone offers to dial it for you. Just tap Call to make it happen, or tap Cancel to forget the whole thing.

To see the URL for a link, press and hold your finger against the link. Use this method also to determine whether a picture has a link. The window that slides up from the bottom of the screen to show you the URL gives you other options. You can tap to open the page (replacing the current one), open a link in a new tab, or copy the URL so that you can, say, paste it in a note or in an outgoing email. You can also add the page to a Reading list, as we discuss later in the chapter.

Not every web link cooperates with the iPhone. The iPhone doesn’t support some common web standards — most notably sites, animations, and games that rely on Adobe Flash. Apple is throwing its own weight behind another video technology called HTML5. In the meantime, if you see an incompatible link, nothing may happen — or a message may appear that you need to install a plug-in, not that you could actually install it.

Book(mark) ’em, Dano

You already know how useful bookmarks are and how you can synchronize bookmarks from the browsers on your computer. It’s equally simple to bookmark a web page directly on the iPhone:

1. Make sure that the page you want to bookmark is open, and tap the share icon, in the bottom-middle area of the screen (and shown in the margin).

   As you see in Figure 11-6, you have many options beyond bookmarking when you tap the icon (though not all the options are visible in the figure). You can tap Message, Mail, Twitter, or Facebook. Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo (Chinese variations of Twitter) are also available, if you added a Chinese keyboard in Settings (see Chapter 2). Or you can tap Add Bookmark, Add to Reading List, Add to Home Screen, Copy, or Print. You can also use the wireless feature called AirDrop to share the page with people nearby via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

   But we’re talking bookmarks here, so tap Add Bookmark and the screen shown in Figure 11-7 appears, with a default name and folder location.

   

   

2. Decide whether to go with the default bookmark name and location:
   • To accept the default bookmark name and default bookmark folder, tap Save, in the upper-right corner.
   • To change the default bookmark name, tap the X in the circle next to the name, and enter the new title (by using the virtual keyboard). Tap Save unless you also want to change the location where the bookmark is saved.
   • To change the location, tap the Location field, tap the folder where you want the bookmark kept, and then tap the Back icon in the upper-left corner of the screen. Then tap Save.

To open a bookmarked page after you set it up, tap the bookmarks icon at the bottom of the screen (labeled in Figure 11-1) and then tap the appropriate bookmark.

If you don’t see bookmarks right away, make sure that the leftmost of the three tabs at the top of the screen is highlighted in blue. The other tabs are for the reading list and links shared by your contacts from selected social networks.

If the bookmark you have in mind is buried inside a folder, tap the folder name first and then tap the bookmark you want.

If you tap another share icon option instead of Add Bookmark (refer to Figure 11-6), you can then tap

• AirDrop to share the page with other people who have compatible devices and AirDrop turned on. You’ll need to turn on AirDrop yourself in Control Center. Then you can choose whether to make your iPhone discoverable to everyone or only to people in your contacts.
• Message and send a link to the web page in a text or an iMessage.
• Mail and the Mail program opens, with a link for the page in the message and the name of the site or page in the Subject line.
• Twitter to add the web page to an outgoing tweet. Of course, you must fill in the rest of the actual post, remembering that Twitter limits you to 140 characters max. Tap Location if you want to identify your location at the time you posted your tweet. If this is your first time attempting to use Twitter on the iPhone, you will be prompted to go to Settings to enter your Twitter username and password.
• Facebook to post the page — and whatever comments you choose to add — to the popular social network. Again, you can tap Location to include your location. Tap Audience to determine who can see your post.
• Sina Weibo, if available on your phone, to post via this Chinese microblogging service.
• Tencent Weibo, if available on your phone, if you’d rather use this Chinese service.
• Add to Reading List and create a bookmark to pages that you want to read later. Then, when you want to access your reading list, tap the bookmarks icon to summon your list of bookmarks. The reading list is represented by an eyeglasses icon. Through iCloud, you can keep this reading list current across all your iOS devices, as well as your PC or Mac.
• Add to Home Screen to add the site’s icon to your Home screen so you can quickly access the site. Note that the Add to Home Screen icon already shows the logo for the website you’re adding or a small image of the page itself. You can label the Home screen icon before tapping Add to complete the process.
• Copy and paste a link to the page in question in another app. Just hold your finger against the screen and then tap Paste.
• Print to search for an AirPrint printer. If you have one, you can choose the number of copies you want. Tap Print to complete the job.
• More to summon a list of activities. You can change their order by dragging the three horizontal lines to the right of each activity. (You can drag the icons to a new position also without tapping More.)

Altering bookmarks

If a bookmarked site is no longer meaningful, you can change it or get rid of it:

• To remove a bookmark (or folder): Tap the bookmarks icon and swipe the entry for the bookmark you want to toss off the list from right to left so that a red Delete button appears on the right. Tap Delete. Then tap Done, unless you want another bookmark to go away. As an alternative, you can tap Edit at the bottom-right corner of the screen and then tap the red circle next to each bookmark that you want to delete.
• To change a bookmark’s name or location: Tap Edit and then tap the bookmark. The Edit Bookmark screen appears with the name, URL, and location of the bookmark. Tap the fields you want to change. In the Name field, tap the X in the gray circle and then use the keyboard to enter a new title. In the Location field, tap the > symbol, scroll up or down the list until you find a new home for your bookmark, and then tap that new destination.
• To create a new folder for your bookmarks: Tap Edit and then tap New Folder in the bottom left. Enter the name of the new folder and choose where to put it.
• To move a bookmark up or down a list: Tap Edit and then drag the three bars to the right of the bookmark’s name.

Viewing open pages on other devices

Apple includes a helpful feature called iCloud Tabs that lets you venture into cyberspace to look at web pages open on your other iOS devices and computers.

You get to iCloud Tabs by tapping the pages icon and then scrolling all the way to the bottom, past the carousel of cool-looking 3D tabs. You’ll then see your list of open links, segregated by device, as shown in Figure 11-8. Tap any listing to access that page on your phone.

When in the Pages view, tap Done to return to the last web page you were looking at before tapping the pages icon. Tap + instead to return to the icons representing all your bookmarks and frequently visited pages. Tap Private to close all your existing pages before turning on private browsing, which we get to later in this chapter.

If for some reason you don’t see iCloud Tabs after tapping the pages icon, head to Settings, tap iCloud, and make sure that the option for Safari is turned on.

Through the Continuity and Handoff features baked into iOS 8, you can now start browsing a page on your iPad or Mac with OS X Yosemite and resume from the same link on your iPhone. Each machine or device must be signed into the same iCloud account.

Letting history repeat itself

Sometimes, you want to revisit a site that you failed to bookmark, but you can’t remember the darn destination or what led you there in the first place. Good thing you can study the history books.

Safari records the pages you visit and keeps the logs on hand for several days. Tap the bookmarks icon, tap History (likely second down on the list), and then tap the day you think you hung out at the site. When you find the listing, tap it. You’re about to make your triumphant return.

To clear your history so that nobody else can trace your steps — and just what is it you’re hiding? — tap Clear at the bottom of the History list. You can clear your history for the last hour, for the day you’re looking at, for the day your looking at plus the day before, or all time.

Alternatively, on the Home page, tap Settings⇒Safari⇒Clear History and Website Data. In both instances, per usual, you have a chance to back out without wiping the slate clean.

Launching a mobile search mission

Most of us spend a lot of time using search engines on the Internet. And the search engines we summon most often are Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Bing, at least in the United States. If you’re in China, chances are you search Baidu. In any event, all these search options are available on the iPhone, as is another resource called DuckDuckGo, a search engine that claims not to track you. We’ll take DuckDuckGo at its word, and assume that the claim is all it’s quacked up to be (sorry, we couldn’t resist).

Although you can certainly use the virtual keyboard to type google.com, yahoo.com, or bing.com into the smart search field, Apple doesn’t require that tedious effort. Instead, just type your search query directly in the box.

In Settings, you can also enable Search Engine Suggestions so that you can browse and search from the same aforementioned smart search field.

When you want to conduct a web search on the iPhone, tap the smart search field. You immediately see icons for your favorite web destinations, with Apple betting on your frequent return visits. But when you start typing in the smart search field, a Google (or other) search mission commences, with a Top Hit(s) — an educated guess really — shown at the top. Apple bases its guess on your bookmarks and browsing history.

You see other search suggestions as you start tapping additional letters. In Figure 11-9, for example, typing the letters le yields such suggestions as Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Lebron James. Tap any search results that look promising, or tap Go on the keyboard to immediately land on the Top Hit. Or keep tapping out letters to generate more search results.

As you can see in Figure 11-9, any Bookmarks and History results are also shown. On This Page matches may be displayed too (though you may have to scroll down to see them).

To search engines, go to the Home page and tap Settings⇒Safari⇒Search Engine, and then tap to choose one search behemoth over the other.

Saving web pictures

You can capture most pictures you come across on a website — but be mindful of any potential copyright violations, depending on what you plan to do with the image. To copy an image from a website, hold your finger against the image and tap the Save Image button that slides up, as shown in Figure 11-10. Saved images end up in your Recently Added album in the Photos app, from which they can be synced back to a computer. If you tap Copy instead, you can paste the image into an email or as a link in a program such as Notes.

Reading clutter-free web pages

It’s all too easy to get distracted reading web pages nowadays, what with ads and other clutter surrounding the stuff you actually want to take in. So pay attention to the horizontal lines that often appear in the smart search field, as shown in Figure 11-11 (left). Tap those lines to view the same article without the needless diversions, as shown in Figure 11-11 (right).

Private Browsing

Don’t want to leave any tracks while you surf? Don’t worry, we won’t ask and we won’t tell. Turn on private browsing for a “what happens in Safari stays in Safari” tool. Those truly bent on staying private will also want to tap Clear History and Website Data, as we mention earlier in this chapter.

To go incognito, tap Bookmarks so that you see a tabbed view of open pages, and then tap the Private button, in the bottom-left corner. You’re given the option to close your existing tabs before turning on private browsing.

After private browsing is on, any traces of your visit to nonono.com (or wherever) are nowhere to be found. With iOS 8, you can now go private on tabs representing what you consider to be your most sensitive cyberdestinations, without having to go private while you browse sites that are more innocuous.

Your history is wiped clean, open tabs don’t appear in iCloud Tabs, and your AutoFill information is not stored anywhere. To remind you that you’re browsing privately, the Safari interface takes on a darker shade — a not so subtle message here, we suppose, that you might be engaging in a shady or naughty activity. We don’t pass judgment. Besides, we assume that you’re just a private soul, and we certainly respect that.

To return out of hiding, tap the bookmarks icon and then tap Private again.

Smart Safari Settings

Along with the riches galore found on the Internet are places in cyberspace where you’re hassled. You might want to take pains to maintain your security.

Return with us now to Settings, by tapping the Settings icon on the Home page. Now tap Safari. You’ve already discovered how to change the default search engine and clear the record of the sites you visited through Settings. Now see what else you can do:

• Fill out forms with AutoFill: When Passwords & AutoFill is turned on, Safari can automatically fill out web forms by using your personal contact information, usernames, passwords, and credit card information or by using information from other contacts in your address book. You can also save AutoFill credit card info. Or not.
• Play favorites: Here’s the place to determine whether to quickly access Favorites bookmarks when you enter an address, search, or create a tab.
• Open links: Choose whether links will open in a new tab or in the background.
• Block cookies: We’re not talking about crumbs you may have accidentally dropped on the iPhone. Cookies are tiny bits of information that a website places on the iPhone when you visit so that the site recognizes you when you return. You need not assume the worst: Most cookies are benign and many are beneficial.

  If this concept wigs you out, you can take action: Tap Block Cookies to block cookies from third parties and advertisers, a reasonable middle ground. You can choose otherwise to always block cookies or to never block them. Or choose to allow cookies from the current website you’re visiting or any of the websites you visit. Tap Safari to return to the main Safari settings page.

  If you don’t set the iPhone to accept cookies, certain web pages don’t load properly and sites such as Amazon and organizations you belong to will no longer recognize you when you appear at their doors.

• Hide your tracks: Yes, we already told you about private browsing. By turning on Do Not Track in Safari settings, you’re taking an additional safeguard.
• Field search suggestions: Choose whether to turn on search engine suggestions, Spotlight Suggestions, Quick Website search, or to preload the Top Hit when you’re searching in the smart search field. It’s worth noting that unless you alter your privacy settings, when you enable Spotlight Suggestions in Safari, your search queries and the Spotlight Suggestions that you select are shared with Apple, as is any related usage data.
• Use Cellular Data for Reading List: When turned on, this option lets you use your cellular network to save reading list items from iCloud so you can read them offline.
• Turn JavaScript on or off: Programmers use JavaScript to add various kinds of functionality to web pages, such as displaying the date and time or changing images when you access them. In the past, some security risks have also been associated with JavaScript, though none we know of affect mobile Safari. You find this option under Advanced in Safari settings.
• Receive fraud warnings: By turning on this setting, you’ll be warned when you inadvertently visit a fraudulent website, perhaps one engaging in phishing or pharming scams to steal your username, password, and other account information. Fraudulent websites sometimes masquerade as legitimate banks or other financial institutions to trick you into freely surrendering data. As a result, we think it’s a good idea to keep this setting turned on.
• Block pop-ups: Pop-ups are those web pages that show up whether you want them to or not. Often, they’re annoying advertisements. But at some sites, you’ll welcome the appearance of pop-ups, so remember to turn off blocking under such circumstances.
• Determine advanced settings: The Safari settings under Advanced aren’t meant for regular folks. You’ll find information here on website data, and a Web Inspector tool that can assist techies in resolving web page errors when your phone is connected by cable to a computer.

Taming Safari is just the start of exploiting the Internet on the iPhone. In upcoming chapters, you discover how to master email, maps, and more.